It seems like every generation gets at least one grand scale production dealing with the human response to an alien visitation on Earth. Going as far to takes of first contact such as Forbidden Planet, or The Day The Earth Stood Still, films like this have often carried with them a sense of global scale, coupled with character arcs more personal and often fearful. Enter Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL. The French Canadian auteur tries his hand at something so huge, and yet it pulls off what could only be interpreted as miraculous. A work so willing to get intimate with it's central characters, that it at almost effortlessly becomes a story of..well, frankly us. Few films have almost supernaturally captured a specific cultural moment in time quite like ARRIVAL, and not a moment too soon. With all that is happening throughout the world as markets recoil, and authoritarianism surges, it's deeply heartening to see how an alien contact film can be so willing to embrace something so hippy-dippy, and yet so dramatically crucial.
Skilled linguist and professor, Louise Banks(Amy Adams), is still recovering from the passing of her daughter when she is summoned by the U.S. government to participate in a global scale event. The event being the arrival of twelve large extraterrestrial shells that have suddenly begun to hover ominously over the Earth. One such shell has been floating over the plains of Montana. And with the military brass desperate to know the alien visitors' intentions, Banks, along with theoretical physicist, Ian Donnelly(Jeremy Renner) have been handpicked to help initiate contact, and to help decipher the alien language. All of this as tensions mount among not only the world, but among those within the compound who are eager for answers. And time is running short before fears of an impending confrontation begin to mount.
Having only recently gathering steam with genre outside of the surreal and outright dramatic, Villeneuve, again steers expectations into a glacial and often enigmatic realm. Not unlike his work on last year's SICARIO, he takes what could very easily fall into standard fare, and elevates matters into this looking glass dimension where the audience views the entirety of the experience though specifically feminine eyes. (In this case, Adams') From minute one, we are with Banks, as she is whisked from quiet emotional reverberation to tension to wonder. The film does all in its power to allow the viewer to feel as she does from the call to action to terror, to wonder, and back several ways to Sunday. Not merely interested in spectacle, the film invites us to absorb Banks' journey as our own, while disconnect could not feel more dense, to the detriment to human sense of security. We are constantly reminded of the global news, and information landscape that often obfuscates even the simplest piece of news. And how this feeds into a sometimes impossibly navigable community narrative. Allowing the larger themes of communication, and self-illumination to coalesce into a singular take on what has become something of a science fiction hallmark.
Across the board, the film does wonders with its presentation and performances which is in itself becoming a trademark of Villeneuve's work. From the often phenomenal cinematography by Bradford Young, who's work elicits shades of Roger Deakins' beautiful work in Villeneuve's previous film, to Jóhann Jóhannsson's effective, otherworldly score. Through all the trappings, and oddness that the director's touch can deliver, there remains the source material's notion of language and time being at the center of all existence. And while it is a concept that on the surface looks like more time travel claptrap, there is indeed something to the ideas presented as something we ourselves can also consider as communicative beings. Couple everything, and what is weaved is at times both heavy in sentiment, but wholly necessary as we find ourselves more and more mired in powers at odds with shared language.
As such, ARRIVAL is just the kind of art piece in blockbuster clothing we may have most needed.
It seems like every generation gets at least one grand scale production dealing with the human response to an alien visitation on Earth. Going as far to takes of first contact such as Forbidden Planet, or The Day The Earth Stood Still, films like this have often carried with them a sense of global scale, coupled with character arcs more personal and often fearful. Enter Denis Villeneuve's ARRIVAL. The French Canadian auteur tries his hand at something so huge, and yet it pulls off what could only be interpreted as miraculous. A work so willing to get intimate with it's central characters, that it at almost effortlessly becomes a story of..well, frankly us. Few films have almost supernaturally captured a specific cultural moment in time quite like ARRIVAL, and not a moment too soon. With all that is happening throughout the world as markets recoil, and authoritarianism surges, it's deeply heartening to see how an alien contact film can be so willing to embrace something so hippy-dippy, and yet so dramatically crucial.
Skilled linguist and professor, Louise Banks(Amy Adams), is still recovering from the passing of her daughter when she is summoned by the U.S. government to participate in a global scale event. The event being the arrival of twelve large extraterrestrial shells that have suddenly begun to hover ominously over the Earth. One such shell has been floating over the plains of Montana. And with the military brass desperate to know the alien visitors' intentions, Banks, along with theoretical physicist, Ian Donnelly(Jeremy Renner) have been handpicked to help initiate contact, and to help decipher the alien language. All of this as tensions mount among not only the world, but among those within the compound who are eager for answers. And time is running short before fears of an impending confrontation begin to mount.
Having only recently gathering steam with genre outside of the surreal and outright dramatic, Villeneuve, again steers expectations into a glacial and often enigmatic realm. Not unlike his work on last year's SICARIO, he takes what could very easily fall into standard fare, and elevates matters into this looking glass dimension where the audience views the entirety of the experience though specifically feminine eyes. (In this case, Adams') From minute one, we are with Banks, as she is whisked from quiet emotional reverberation to tension to wonder. The film does all in its power to allow the viewer to feel as she does from the call to action to terror, to wonder, and back several ways to Sunday. Not merely interested in spectacle, the film invites us to absorb Banks' journey as our own, while disconnect could not feel more dense, to the detriment to human sense of security. We are constantly reminded of the global news, and information landscape that often obfuscates even the simplest piece of news. And how this feeds into a sometimes impossibly navigable community narrative. Allowing the larger themes of communication, and self-illumination to coalesce into a singular take on what has become something of a science fiction hallmark.
Across the board, the film does wonders with its presentation and performances which is in itself becoming a trademark of Villeneuve's work. From the often phenomenal cinematography by Bradford Young, who's work elicits shades of Roger Deakins' beautiful work in Villeneuve's previous film, to Jóhann Jóhannsson's effective, otherworldly score. Through all the trappings, and oddness that the director's touch can deliver, there remains the source material's notion of language and time being at the center of all existence. And while it is a concept that on the surface looks like more time travel claptrap, there is indeed something to the ideas presented as something we ourselves can also consider as communicative beings. Couple everything, and what is weaved is at times both heavy in sentiment, but wholly necessary as we find ourselves more and more mired in powers at odds with shared language.
As such, ARRIVAL is just the kind of art piece in blockbuster clothing we may have most needed.
